The New Year is an extremely exciting time. This excitement and increased motivation can drive you to make goals and resolutions. However once the holidays pass, you may quickly realize just how hard it is to create change and succeed in those goals.
And that’s why I have rounded up 8 successful strategies to help you keep up with your New Year’s resolutions and reach your goals in 2024.
The New Year is an extremely exciting time. There is a feeling and aura round the new year that people gain motivation and new goals come to life. The New Year can remind you that you can reset your energy and visions. And you can change your life!
However, every year millions of people make New Year’s resolutions and millions of people fail. A study from Ipsos showed that 80% of American that make New Year’s resolutions fail by February.
So why even bother making them?
When people look back on their life from one year ago, it can be unbelievable how much they’ve changed. This also means that the coming year is a time where unimaginable change can occur. We get excited and become really passionate toward these new beginnings and what we will do in the following year.
That feeling of exciting and joy of creating a vision and resolutions can be very transformative and powerful.
You don’t have to wait until New Year’s to start working toward a new goal, however, the new year is a time that people start thinking about these goals and gain new motivation.
And by all mean….run with it!
Take it away and use that motivation as a starting point.
Because you know what? Starting can be one of the hardest parts.
A study found that, of the people that set New Year’s resolutions, almost 50% of people are still successful in keeping them after 6 months compared to 4% of people that had similar goals but didn’t make a resolution.
So if you are ready to make New Year’s resolutions and want to be successful, keep reading to find 8 strategies to keep up with your New Year’s resolutions and reach your goals!
Featured image: Image by our-team on Freepik
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8 Strategies to Keep Up With Your New Year’s Resolutions
1. Make sure you have SMART goals
It is much easier to succeed if you have clearly defined goals that are based in reality. If your goal is to run a marathon in a month but you haven’t ever run more than a mile at a time, it is not a realistic or healthy goal.
This is why creating SMART goals are really important if you want to succeed.
SMART goals represent an acronym defined as:
- Specific: Your goal is clearly defined. “I want to lose weight” is too vague. Instead, “I want to lose 5 pounds per month” is specific.
- Measurable: This means you have to quantify your goals. A specific number amount of weight lost is quantifiable and can be measure.
- Attainable: Can you actually achieve it? Goals are meant to challenge you, however, if your goal is impossible, you will be setting yourself up to fail.
- Relevant: Does your goal match the plan for your life? Your goals should be relevant to where you see yourself in the future and relevant to your life.
- Time: Make sure to include a date by which you want to achieve your goal.
Read more: Goal Setting: 6 Benefits that will Lead to Success
2. Make a plan
In order to go from point A (where you are now) to point B (achieving the goal), you have to do work. Therefore, you need to create a step by step action plan on how you are going to achieve that goal.
- Determine what tasks you need to do and how often you need to do them in order to complete the goal. What are the daily, weekly and monthly tasks?
- Put each task/action on a schedule or planner.
- Follow through with that plan and stick to it.
3. Be consistent!
Staying consistent is one of the hardest things to do as life will always get in the way. Unexpected things will get thrown at you but staying as consistent as possible through everything is what’s going to be the difference between success and failure.
If you struggle with consistency and discipline, try this:
- Plan out your week
- Place reminders everywhere
- Get organized
- Use goal-tracking apps
- Have your goals written down somewhere you can see everyday
- Practice time management
- Limit the number of goals you focus on at a time
4. Break up big goals
Creating big goals are great, however that means it may take a long time with a big commitment. The longer and harder it is to achieve that goal, the easier it is going to be to lose motivation and give up.
This is why breaking up your big goals into small sections will help:
- Keep you on the right path
- Create milestones
- Help you see progress easier
5. Celebrate every win (big or small)
When you have any goal, it needs to be celebrated once you succeed or reach a milestone. Having that celebration and feeling that sense of pride helps keep you motivated and will likely make you want to continue to succeed.
Therefore, celebrating every win you can will help make the hard work worth it and create that feeling of pride and joy that should be associated with achieving a goal.
Here are a few simple ways to celebrate wins:
- Treat yourself
- Take a day off
- Verbal celebration
- Hang out with friends
- Go out to dinner
- Buy yourself something
- Take a relaxing bath
6. Hold yourself accountable
Motivation alone is not enough to achieve goals. This is because you aren’t going to be motivation 100% of the time.
There are going to be days where you aren’t motivated and in order to stay consistent and push through, you need to hold yourself accountable and do it anyway. I know…this is much easier to say than to actually do it.
However, beauty of creating your own goals is that the work you have to put in, is for you! You are doing this because YOU want to succeed and YOU want these goals. Holding yourself accountable means pushing through and finish the things you need to accomplish each day to reach that goal.
This means giving it your 100% everyday. Each day you aren’t going feel the same, however, as long as you are giving 100% of what you have that day, your doing the job. You know your limits and what you can give. Holding yourself accountable will be important in keeping up with your New Year’s resolutions.
7. Get support from others
The people that are closest with you can have a lot of affect on your life and your success. Sharing your commitment and goals with those people can give you that extra support and accountability you may need.
Discuss with those people a few things they could do to help you achieve your goals.
8. Make your goals a prioritize
There is only so much time in a day and if you don’t make your goals a prioritize, you will never find the time to work towards it and it won’t be consistent.
This was the number one piece of advice I used when starting this blog. The entire first year of having my blog I didn’t make it a priority. I knew I wanted to have a successful blog but it wasn’t a priority so I never seemed to have the time to work on it. As soon as I may it a priority, I have been way more consistent.
So I’m here to tell you that you do have time, you just need to make it a priority.
And that’s it! I hope for nothing but success and happiness in the New Year and for all your hard work and resolutions to be known! Have a great year!
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